Stop glorifying Lindsey Graham

On October 3, Senator Lindsey Graham
told Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, that the "love crap" between President Donald Trump and North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-Un "needs to stop." Meanwhile, he also advised Trump to stay in Afghanistan and Syria. His argument? That not doing so would continue the mistakes of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

But Graham has reinvented himself since the 2016 election. Once an ardent foe of President Trump, he's now his vigorous ally, making
headlines for defending Trump's Supreme Court pick Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He also lead the way in trying to replace Obamacare and supports Trump's tariffs on foreign countries. But beneath this new fervor for Trump's agenda, Graham still remains a steadfast interventionist who has never seen a war he does not support.

Trump, for all of his faults, promised during the
presidential election to draw back American involvement in foreign wars and from the world theater, calling it an "America First" strategy. Though he hasn't followed through on all of his campaign promises on foreign policy, he has succeeded in engaging diplomatically with North Korea and demonstrating that he isn't beholden to the neoconservatives who dominated Republican foreign policy for the last 20 years. He has also been hesitant to use military force to overthrow Iran, despite his own hawkish tendencies toward the Khamenei regime.Furthermore, Trump's administration has been relatively open to influence from non-interventionist figures such as Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky).

Graham, of course, is all for using military might to overthrow regimes we don't like. He
called for an Iranian regime change should the Iranians refuse to comply with American demands on their nuclear program. He even suggested that conflict with Iran would be simple, telling former Defense Secretary Ash Carter that, in a hypothetical war between the U.S and Iran, "We win." Yet, there was no nuance in this discussion and no appreciation for the chaos another war would bring to the Middle East — as it did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Graham has actively fought against non-interventionist causes,
calling for more money and troops to be dumped into the Middle East. For Graham, a constant American presence is what keeps terrorists from committing attacks in the U.S. and he said that Congressmen who opposed increasing troop numbers in Afghanistan would be responsible for the "next 9/11." While Graham fails to realize that homegrown terrorists are the real threat to American security, he continues to support wars that cost thousands of American lives in the Middle East. An estimated 3,000 Americans lost their lives on 9/11, yet more than 6,000 Americans have lost their lives in the wars that followed.

Graham
has suggested that scaling back American intervention and not going to war would cost American lives. The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf summarized his arguments writing, "In each case, he argues that American deaths could result if his advice is not taken, but fails to contend with opportunity costs."

But if saving American lives is truly Graham's motivation for supporting American interventionism across the world, why would he continue to advocate for wars that have accomplished little outside of killing thousands of Americans and
radicalizing individuals and populations against the U.S.?

Unfortunately, Graham's warmongering is not just limited to supporting American-led interventions. They also extend to our allies.

His recent firey words in defense of Kavanaugh by no means wipe out years of foolish and troublesome support for foreign policy.

Nowhere is this more apparent than
his support for the Saudi Arabian intervention in Yemen, where tens of thousands have been killed in a civil war. American bombs dropped by Saudi warplanes killed thousands of Yemen citizens. And these aren't accidental deaths. Saudi Arabia intentionally kills its own civilians. The government has bombed weddings, factories, and hospitals with America-made munitions that Graham voted to give them.

A cynic can
point out that Saudi money flows through Congress, and link it to the fact that Saudi Arabia continues to receive American support despite bipartisan concerns. The Center for Foreign Policy's Ben Freeman pointed out that Graham's office was contacted the most times by Saudi Arabian lobbyists during the debate over authorizing a $500 million arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

There's no denying it: Graham is a warmonger. Thus, no matter how close he inches toward Trump's camp, his formidable interventionist streak will muddy his rechristening as a MAGA advocate. His recent firey words in defense of Kavanaugh by no means wipe out years of foolish and troublesome support for foreign policy that has been responsible for the deaths of thousands. Trump supporters and Kavananugh fans alike would do well to keep that in mind—and, perhaps, forgo the standing ovation.

Elias Atienza is a Young Voices contributor. Follow him on Twitter at @elias_atienza.

We've finally heard some news on the migrant caravan. Some of the migrants have given up and gone back home, but some are still there waiting at the border. A leader representing the group has decided to step forward, and he's made out a list of... demands. Remember when I said back in October that this caravan was originally formed as a Leftist act against the Honduran government by people with ties to Venezuela and Cuba? Well what do you know… wait until you hear who this guy is.

Alfonso Guerrero personally walked into the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico with a list of demands from the caravan. Get a load of this. The caravan is demanding that if they're not granted immediate asylum they want the following:

Fifty thousand dollars in cash for every caravan member (which would be a total of tens of millions).

The immediate removal of all U.S. economic and military assets in Honduras.

Failure to comply to these demands will result in the caravan continuing to try and penetrate the U.S. border.

I mean, if you're trying to appear like some grassroots movement for migrants that are just escaping the dangers of their own country, you might want to - oh I don't know - tone down the crazy Leftist freedom fighter schtick. I'm just saying. Demanding millions of dollars AND the removal of the U.S. military from Honduras kinda just screams, "Hey check me out. I'm a Marxist terrorist." It would have been basically the same thing if he just charged up to the embassy wearing a beret and shouted "Viva la Revolution!!" while firing off an RPG.

Well, it turns out this isn't the first time Mr Guerrero has tried to claim asylum. Back in 1987 he claimed asylum in Mexico after being suspected by the Honduran and U.S. government for - wait for it - left wing terrorism… Jeez, you know you really can't make this stuff up. This is INSANE. Here's the story…

This is ridiculous. Can we all now agree that this entire charade is a fraudulent scam?

In 1987 Honduras was ground zero for U.S. and Soviet proxy forces fighting the Cold War. The Contra rebels were actually based there, and leftists terrorists would sometimes carry out operations in the country in response. On August 8th a bomb was thrown into the China Palace restaurant, just a few miles from the U.S. military base in Honduras. Six American soldiers were injured in the blast. Alfonso Guerrero was the primary suspect. He escaped to Mexico and claimed asylum. The Reagan Administration charged the Mexican government for quote "harboring a terrorist" for granting Guerrero protection.

But all the caravan wants is a better life in the United States… oh and millions of dollars AND a list of political demands for their home country. This is ridiculous. Can we all now agree that this entire charade is a fraudulent scam? This is a Leftist political stunt. It has been since the very beginning.

Here's an incident that you won't hear about anywhere else. It doesn't fit the mainstream media's transgender narrative, their fairy tale of infinite genders, where any criticism is viewed as transphobic and taboo and certainly not something that the majority of Americans think or feel.

Last week, in West Point, Virginia, a high school French teacher named Peter Vlaming was fired after a five-and-a-half hour hearing that centered on his refusal to use a transgender student's specific gender pronouns. Vlaming said that doing so violated his religious beliefs.

Tolerance is a two-way street. Unfortunately, tolerance on the part of the school division has been noticeably absent. It chose to impose its own orthodoxy on Mr. Vlaming and fired him because he didn't relinquish his rights protected by the First Amendment.

School administrators fired Vlaming "due to this insubordination and repeated refusal to comply with directives made to him by multiple WPPS administrators."

The school justified the firing by pointing to a set of policies aimed at curbing misgendering of transgender students.

Vlaming's lawyer disputed this, saying that the policies include no such mention of transgenderism, adding that:

My client respects the rights of all students, including this student's rights; he simply asked that his rights be respected as well. Unfortunately, the school division refused to consider any solutions that would respect the freedoms of everyone involved.

There is a ray of hope in all of this, though. The students. A group of students from the school immediately staged a walkout in protest of Vlaming's firing.

One student told reporters:

I feel like everyone should have the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion as well.

Students lined up outside the school with signs that said, "Free Vlam." Another included a quote from Ben Shapiro: "Facts don't care about your feelings." Another read "You can't impose delusion onto us."

Whether it's a 'War on Christmas' or just progressivism run amok, the song 'Baby It's Cold Outside' has been firmly in the crosshairs this holiday season. Here are just a few of the headlines making the rounds:

The left might think they are woke and on the right side of history in the wake of the #MeToo movement — but how shocked do you think they'd be if they knew Glenn beat them to the punch over a decade ago? Don't believe me? Take a listen to this clip from our audio vault from 2008.

Christmas has arrived early for mainstream media. They have their first sentencing of a major player in President Trump's inner circle. Yesterday, Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced by a federal judge in Manhattan. How did it come to this and how did Cohen explain himself to the judge? We start there next…

President Trump's former attorney, 52-year-old Michael Cohen, is going to jail. Well, it will probably be one of those federal prison camps with a dorm that's more like a college campus. But he's going to be locked up. A federal judge sentenced him to three years in prison for financial crimes, and two months for lying to Congress. He also ordered Cohen to pay $2 million in financial penalties. The judge called Cohen's misdeeds a "veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct."

As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better. While Mr. Cohen is taking steps to mitigate his criminal conduct by pleading guilty and volunteering useful information to prosecutors, that does not wipe the slate clean.

Cohen pled guilty in August to eight criminal charges in two different cases. One brought by special counsel Robert Muller for Cohen's lying to Congress about a potential Trump Tower project in Moscow. The second was for bank-fraud, tax, and campaign finance violations brought by federal prosecutors in New York.

President Trump said recently that Cohen has simply been lying to get a reduced sentence for crimes that have nothing to do with him. Cohen was very emotional as he apologized to the judge, saying:

It was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. Time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.

The left thinks that Cohen's sentencing marks the beginning of the end for Trump's presidency. They may be ultimately disappointed in that regard. But this does intensify the long national nightmare of the Muller investigation that seems to have no end in sight.